I'm thinking about things I need to see happen in sports. Not necessarily happen today, perhaps tomorrow. Maybe by the end of the decade, maybe just in my lifetime.
No rhyme or reason to the order of these, it's just an old-fashioned spontaneous list of things I'd make happen if I were the "Sports Czar" Bill Simmons used to write about in his glory days.
1. I need baseball to MATTER again
Seemed like the Home Run Derby and ASG this week were fun, right?
Fox drew a 6.5 overnight rating for MLB All-Star Game, up slightly from record-low 6.4 last year.— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) July 12, 2017
What were you doing on a Tuesday night that was better than the All-Star Game? Watching NBA Summer League? Figure it out. Perhaps a Simpsons marathon on FXX? They show episodes from the mid-2000s and beyond rather than the '90s on Tuesday nights (don't ask me how I know that, just take my word for it).
I need Red Sox-Yankees to become a blood war again. A nuclear arms race along the lines of the pre-2004 build-up. I need Aaron Judge to become the new Derek Jeter. I need Bryce Harper to become the new A-Rod. I need someone on the Red Sox to step up and become a larger-than-life presence a la David Ortiz. I need more incidents similar to the one between the Red Sox and Orioles earlier this season, or the one between the Giants and Nationals. I need hate.
What I don't need is the tinkering of the rules to cater baseball strictly to those with short attention spans, but I also wouldn't hate to see games shrink in time by about half an hour. No need to dick around on the mound for 30 seconds between pitches.
"Baseball in decline" takes on sports take radio are tiring, but it also shows me people do care about baseball. Is there some truth that the game is sluggish? Of course. Getting rid of replay would be a great way to reverse the trend; just accept human error is part of the game and move on. Which would equal more manager freak outs, which is a good thing. Are you not entertained?
2. I need Jaromir Jagr to win another Stanley Cup
The Jagr made his NHL debut on Oct. 5, 1990. Five days before I was born. He's the last active player in any of the Big Four sports whose career began before I existed. The sentimentality is real.
But sadly, his drought of Stanley Cup championships is nearly as long. After winning back-to-back Cups with the Penguins in 1991 and 1992, Jagr is on a 25-year personal Cup drought. He's only even been back once since, with the Bruins in 2013.
The NHL has expanded nine times since Jagr last hoisted the Cup. Plus the Whalers were still in Hartford, the Nordiques were still in Quebec City and the Stars were still in Minnesota.
I don't ask for much, but this one's gotta happen. Would help if a team signed the 44-year-old to a contract for the coming season, I suppose.
FA 1994- all GMs called , FA 2017- 0 calls🏆😀 pic.twitter.com/7uLJm95CAB— Jaromir Jagr (@68Jagr) June 29, 2017
3. I need the Seattle SuperSonics to return to the NBA
Why do I remain so infatuated with an NBA team that's been defunct for nearly 10 years?
The Sonics bolting for OKC is without a doubt the shadiest relocation this side of the Baltimore Colts leaving for Indianapolis int he middle of the night. Perhaps even more so, since the lack of transparency was right there for everyone to see. The idiot Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who owned the team, selling to out-of-town buyer Clay Bennett, based out of OKC.
The Hornets had just played the better part of a full season in Oklahoma due to Hurricane Katrina rendering New Orleans unplayable. Fan reception was warm. Gee ya think the dude was trying to find a permanent tenant for OKC, Howard? One of the main reasons I don't drink Starbucks, by the way.
I recently watched Sonicsgate and it made my blood boil anew. Not enough bad things can happen to the Thunder franchise. It was awesome when Kevin Durant left and I fully look forward to Paul George and Russell Westbrook's imminent departures. Sick return on the James Harden trade, for that matter.
The AUDACITY of Clay Bennett to reject the Sacramento Kings' proposal to move to Seattle as chairman of the NBA's relocation committee back in 2013. Not that I wanted SacTown to lose the NBA, but the hypocrisy is unparalleled.
It seems like all leagues are inching towards 32 teams. The NFL is already there, the NHL is at 31, and there's some more baseball expansion talk involving Les Expos - which is a very good thing in its own right. There's no question there's enough talent in the NBA to add two more teams. So let's bring back the Vancouver Grizzlies while we're at it and right the wrongs the Pacific Northwest has endured this millennium.
4. I need lacrosse to overtake soccer as the "fifth sport"
What is the fifth most popular sport in the United States? Now I know some people will tell me that it's NASCAR, which actually draws higher TV numbers than any sport but football in certain areas. Some may say it's golf, which during Tiger's heyday, I would have argued was fourth over hockey even.
Others will say it's soccer. And the screams only seem to grow louder every four years.
Speaking of which, I honestly try every four years. I try to get jazzed up for futbol. It'll happen again next summer, and it'll happen again in 2022 if the World Cup is even held due to that absolute bleep-storm in Qatar.
But it'll be a halfhearted effort. Hard to take the MLS seriously when its biggest names are players who can't cut it in Europe anymore; it's like the KHL to the NHL.
I'm all in on lacrosse and its rise in popularity. Now there's a sport where something happens more than once or twice every 90 minutes. The faceoff-X is a well-executed version of Vince McMahon's "coin toss" idea in the XFL.
I'm hoping the popularity of the high school and collegiate game translates to the pro game soon.
5. I need Roger Goodell to resign/be fired/fall victim to a coup as NFL Commissioner
In the faith of transparency, this would make my list long before the 2014 AFC Championship Game between the Patriots and Colts.
This has everything to do with the saturation of the NFL under Goodell, which future-president Mark Cuban astutely predicted in 2014 when he decried "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered," about the path the NFL was taking.
This is about Thursday Night Football, which nobody asked for.
This is about London. Uh hey Roger, what about the vacancies in St. Louis, San Diego and (soon enough) Oakland created under your watch?
This is about the push to add two more games to the regular season, which save for 31 owners and a slew of Green Bay Packers shareholders, no one seems to think is a good idea. More opportunities for concussions seems bad.
This is about Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Josh Brown, serious issues handled about as poorly as humanly possible by the commissioner's office.
This is about "integrity." I don't know how, I don't know when, but Roger Goodell's day of reckoning can't be too far off. And it will be glorious.
6. I need the University of Rhode Island to drop its football program
Do I actually want my alma mater to drop football? Of course not.
But when you've had three winning seasons since 1985 -- none since 2001 -- and a grand total of zero playoff appearances since '85, you can understand my frustration.
I probably still wouldn't care all that much about the ineptitude of the football program if it weren't preventing the following programs from achieving varsity status down in the lovely village of Kingston, R.I.:
- Men's ice hockey
- Women's ice hockey
- Men's lacrosse
- Women's lacrosse
- Field hockey
- Wrestling
- Men's swimming & diving
- Women's golf
- Men's tennis
- Men's volleyball
I'm not here to tell you I'd be a season ticket holder for any of those, save for men's puck. But it's truly absurd that there are 10 varsity sports every school should have which are unable to be funded due to that albatross of a football program, which is 16-73 (winning percentage of .180) since my freshman year in 2009.
7. I need the University of Connecticut to join a real conference
Growing up, I paid close attention to UConn and BC basketball in the Big East. How could you not if you lived in New England? BC was a legitimate program under Al Skinner, with great players such as Jared Dudley, Craig Smith, Troy Bell, Sean Williams, et al.
But UConn was in a class of its own, winning national titles in 1999, 2004, 2011 and 2014.
The first three were won under the banner of the Big East, but after the realignment turmoil that reached DEFCON1 status, UConn was left without a date to the prom.
The Huskies remain stuck in the American Athletic Conference, a hodgepodge of old Big East and Conference-USA vagabonds, all of whom will bolt the second a better offer comes along.
UConn won that 2014 'ship in its first year as an AAC member, a major FU to the B1G (which plucked RUTGERS from the Big East over Connecticut) and the ACC (which currently houses all sorts of former Big East members, including BC).
What I'm getting at is that UConn deserves better. Jim Delaney, the B1G commissioner, is the biggest villain in sports you've never heard of. Check out some of his finest work here. The B1G deserves whatever happens to it with Rutgers and just in general.
The ACC currently has 14 full-time members, plus one part-timer in Notre Dame. This gives the league 15 basketball playing schools. You know another league that used to have 16 basketball members? That's right it was the Big East. Make it happen again.
8. I need the NBA to re-do its age minimum rule and fix (save?) college basketball
Speaking of college hoops, here's a not-so-revolutionary idea for you: the NBA should raise its age minimum from 19 to 20, thus mandating players stay two years in school for the betterment of the college game, as well as ensuring they are more ready for the pros upon entering.
HOWEVA.
If you want to declare for the draft straight out of high school, go right ahead. But once you step on to a campus, you're there for two years.
The requirement of players to be 19 to be eligible for the draft is absurd. Is one year THAT much of a difference?
Look at some of the great players who've gone straight from high school to the NBA: Bron, Kobe and KG are three of the top 20 players in NBA history, don't @ me. There've been some very, very good players like T-Mac, Jermaine O'Neal, Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler, Amar'e Stoudemire and Rashard Lewis too. Heck the Celtics drafted a few solid ones of their own in Al Jefferson and Perk.
Yes I'm aware of Kwame Brown, Eddy Curry, Darius Miles, Sebastian Telfair and a slew of other busts. Believe it or not, they're the exception, not the rule.
The is plan similar to the baseball draft, where players can be drafted right out of high school, but if they sign with a college, aren't eligible again until after their junior seasons. Basketball isn't baseball, but I fail to see how everyone doesn't benefit under a revised NBA draft system.
9. I need the Red Sox to stop retiring numbers like they're the Memphis Grizzlies
In case you missed it, the Memphis Grizzlies are set to retire Zach Randolph's No. 50 this coming season. This, despite the fact that Z-Bo did not, in fact, retire, and instead signed as a free agent with the Sacramento Kings.
The numbers on the right field facade at Fenway used to mean something. And certainly, the recent additions of Nos. 45 and 34 are worthy. But get out of here with retiring Ortiz's number less than a year after he's been retired. Plus he's still coming back.
What I'm really getting at here is No. 26 (Wade Boggs) and the inevitable retirement of No. 21 (Roger Clemens). Boggs and Clemens are Yankees. Fact, not opinion. I admire Boggs greatly for his ability to crush 60 Miller Lites on a cross country flight, as well as his Always Sunny cameo which spawned one of the series' greatest episodes.
But come on. Guy showed up to his number retirement ceremony with a Yankees World Series ring on. His number is retired by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, too.
Clemens? He had a chance to come back here multiple times later in his career, including in 2007, when he chose to sign with the Yankees instead. Guess what? THE SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES WITHOUT HIM.
Thirteen players wore No. 26 for the Sox after Boggs left; most recently Brock Holt. I don't get it. And for whatever reason, NO ONE has worn No. 21 since Clemens left in 1996. You know as soon as he gets into the Hall of Fame -- and it's coming -- Roger Clemens Day is bound for Fenway Park the following season. I'm all set.
10. I need the NHL to send its players to the Olympics in 2018 and beyond
While Roger Goodell is a worse person, Gary Bettman is worse at his job if we're talking Big Four commissioners, if that makes sense.
Bettman has overseen three lockouts, including one season lost completely.
The Sun Belt Expansion continues to work wonderfully. The Atlanta Thrashers are gone, while the Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes and Phoenix (Arizona, lol) Coyotes continue to set attendance records for all the wrong reasons.
He's done virtually nothing right...save for allowing NHL players to participate in the Olympics each year since 1998.
There's quite possibly nothing better than Olympic hockey. Waking up at 6:30 a.m. for those games in Sochi, Russia in 2014? Sheer awesomeness. Sure it was better when the games were in Vancouver in 2010, meaning you were basically just staying up a little later to watch a Bruins-Canucks game, but nevertheless. The puck could drop at 3:30 a.m. and people would still tune in.
But no. God forbid the game continues to grow on a global scale while creating new fans for what's become a signature event. Who cares if the season pauses for two weeks once every four years? I don't think it affects the NHL's product whatsoever.
I'm looking forward to seeing which players (Ovechkin) head over to South Korea in spite of Bettman this winter. But hopefully it won't have to be in spite, and can simply be because it makes sense.
SPECIAL BONUS LIGHTNING ROUND
- I need the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to go back to the Anaheim Angels, or better yet, the California Angels. The name literally translates to "The Angels Angels of Anaheim." Dumbest name in sports, bar none.
- Speaking of Anaheim, I need the Mighty Ducks logo back. Could work well on the orange uniforms they've used for a decade.
- I need Eli Manning to not get in the Hall of Fame some day. Save for those 2007 and 2011 runs to the Super Bowl, did you know Eli's never won a playoff game?
- I need UMass to not do anything stupid like join the American Athletic Conference and stay put in the Atlantic-10. Need that rivalry with Rhody in hoops.
- I need the college football playoff to expand to eight teams. The fact that there's a playoff at all was a good first step, but it was a half measure like you read about.
- I need Gary Bettman to resign as NHL commissioner. See above for more. While we're at it I need the Florida Panthers to move to Quebec City, thus reviving the Nordiques; I need the Carolina Hurricanes to return to Hartford; and I need the Phoenix Coyotes to move to Seattle. To get the NHL to 32 teams, how about an expansion team in Milwaukee?
- I need ticket prices to come down at all sporting events. Beer prices, too
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